


Frey's Arrow

by UrsulaKohl



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Gen, Mallory isn't captain yet, Multi, Whiskey & Scotch, as fluffy as it gets inside a war zone, canon-typical age jokes, multilingual Belter slang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28202616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/pseuds/UrsulaKohl
Summary: Two Fleet ships at the same Sol station. That was politics. Pol-i-tics. But Meg was a good Rider now.Meg gets a job offer.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Frey's Arrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Senji (Larilille)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larilille/gifts).



It was late. The joli jeune fils and the garçon trez intelligent had gone to bunks and to sleep. Meg maybe should have joined them, but Sal had found a new game they played here on Sol Four, one with stacks of credit chits and interlocking printed tiles, and wasn't going to leave until she won. So Meg was keeping an eye. 

Keeping an eye and nursing a whiskey. This one needed to be nursed. That breath of smoke came from real green Ireland, down the grav well where they had oxygen to burn. A carrier on a comet-path had brought it here, out to the edge of the high-proof bludgeon that was Jupiter's gravity. You could see the old man's curve on the main screen, if you were so minded.

But Meg was watching Sal, the set of her shoulders, the shiver through her braids as she clicked a tile. She was winning. That was clear from the stack of chits. But she wasn't winning fast enough or fecklessly enough to make a fight. Not yet. Not even if her opponents were a Shepherd and two _Norway_ men.

Two Fleet ships at the same Sol station. That was politics. Pol-i-tics. But Meg was a good Rider now. Salted and seasoned. Her hair turned to gray when she didn't paint the sparkles in. She would leave politics to the captains, and the intelligent garçon, if he was feeling lucky. She'd just sip her whiskey slow, and go home to the _Azores_. Stretch her wings and fly.

That was _Norway_ at the bar now. Two of them, a wiry man with the swirl of old tattoos under the fuzz of his regulation haircut and a woman with a shiny new First Officer's sunburst at her collar. Her hair was all the way to silver, the same cold metal as her eyes. 

Crack and tabernak. Politics had come to Meg, this time. "Congratulations on your promotion, sir."

Signy Mallory smiled a tight smile. It said this was neither the first nor the last promotion she would enjoy. "Is the whiskey good, Kady?"

"All the way from Ireland."

"But you've traveled further."

"Is this about the _Atlantic_ 's missions? Or are you skilling Earth geography?" Sometimes a spacer chatted too long with a tale-spinning _Dubliner_ and decided Ireland had the source and monopoly on red hair and grav-assisted handjobs.

Mallory widened her smile, real slow. Trying to get some warmth into those eyes. "I'm not here because of Earth, Kady. I'm here because we're both pilots, you and me. And we've been around a while."

"We are, and we have." Meg knew Mallory via the sims. She'd flown at her shoulder and inside her skin, in the ship's memory of that grand engagement out by Viking station, and shivered as Mallory called for _Frey_ 's missiles, with a clarity so sharp it might have come from tape. Mallory would know her the same way, would have sat at her elbow and tried to beat the joli jeune fils' time. Rider crews were never quite strangers to each other.

"I'm saying you're a _pilot_ , Kady. You've been flying second."

"I've been flying with a team, sir." That was the crux of the problem. Mallory was leaving a hole in her own team, moving up to First. You didn't just reshuffle Rider crews. _Frey_ needed someone who would know her, would love her and sink into her skin, and fill Mallory's bright-and-shiny boots in the process. Two kinds of hooks, with two kinds of barbs: Mallory wanted a replacement who didn't come from _Norway_ , and Mallory thought she and Meg had something in common.

"I've got a good team," Meg added. She thought wide, Ben thought long, Dek moved and Sal smashed. Mallory's team would have a different balance. Mallory moved, and all the rest followed.

Meg was _not_ thinking long, running her mouth like this. Working up to fifty, and she still didn't know how to leave well enough alone.

"The reaction time expires, Kady. Up or out. At some point, it's up or out."

"I'm lucky to have made it here." Meg gave her a slow blink and a slow sip of whiskey. More like a slow gulp. It burned down her throat like being young and stupid.

Part of her wanted it. To be the point of _Frey_ 's arrow. To leap into the dark. Part of her was startled every morning she woke up, no longer jeune rab. Still alive.

A crash behind her, as Sal knocked down a tower of chits. Her laugh cut across the rumble of the late crowd. So much for the end of this glass. "I'd better get my friend."

"Thirty-six hours, Kady." Till the _Norway_ left and the offer evaporated, condensation drawn back into air.

Meg nodded like they did have something in common. Then it was over to the booth and catching Sal's elbow, pulling her up and out, with a jerk of the chin to the _Norway_ men. _Your new First is by the bar._

Sal was still buzzing with the game as they walked out the door. She had boxed the Shepherd up against a _Norway_ man, and dodged around the other _Norway_ as he tried to bring in aid. "They want a comp to check them in their figuring. Deti babies."

"Sweet jeune things," Meg said.

Not fast enough, or not light-hearted enough, because Sal swung an arm around her shoulders (tilting down, since Sal was Shepherd-tall) and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Did you miss Signy Mallory? Holding court?"

"You don't work for her. Jamais bossé. What do you care?"

Meg tensed her shoulders in the beginning of a shrug.

"Oh, she didn't. God, Meg, what did she offer you?"

"Pilot on the _Frey._ " She tried to shape a laugh around it.

Sal heard the wistfulness, the tug of being first into the space between the stars, because she swung to face Meg. Boot against boot, strong hand gripping her shoulder. "Would you go?"

"I've left my home behind, a time or two."

Long nod.

"So of course I fuckin' wouldn't. Sal, let _go_."

Sal tipped her head back, laughing like a waterfall, like a toppling tower. Like all the air was free. "You scared me, old woman."

"Scared myself."

They walked back to the _Atlantic_ with Meg's arm around Sal's waist, bumping hips. They'd go spinning into emptiness, still. Buckled in. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Yuletide! Thanks for the excuse to revisit this canon. I had a lot of fun!
> 
> Thank you to chomiji, flowersforgraves, and sparcina for helpful and educational feedback on personalities and languages.


End file.
